The trouble with silence
by Thatkliqkid
Summary: Oneshot. First story for The A Team fandom so it's probably pretty meh. My tenses probably change too. I don't know why it's in present tense either. Murdock reflects on why he needs all those accents and voices, and why Billy came to be.


Murdock lies on his bed, a gentle hum escaping from his lips, conducting his own tune as he goes. Fresh out of his session with the doctor he's in one of those reflective moods.

Most people would prefer to do their reflection somewhere quiet.

Not Murdock.

He hates silence. Hates the way it has the ability to feel like a heavy weight ready to suffocate with a million unwanted memories at any given second.

So he fills it.

Fills it with singing and voices and a multitude of accents. Anything to shatter that tormenting quiet where the sounds of Vietnam seemingly have free reign to invade. Lack of noise is practically an invitation to them, he knows it's like beckoning the blackness in.

So he makes sure he keeps himself distracted with other sounds, and if said sounds happen to be as a result of imaginary or invisible counterparts then so be it. He knows they're not real. Honest and truly.

He's not crazy.

Not really.

Just a little shaken.

Understandably shaken.

It took him a while to accept that. He felt he had no right to be legitimately unwell for the longest time, especially when he thinks of how he hams it up. He figured he had no right to be genuinely sick when he cranked the crazy up further than it was designated to go.

Besides, serving in the war was a duty, a service for the country he was damn proud to hail from. Fighting the good fight, not specialist trained but securing the airs.

He doesn't care to remember when there was a breakthrough, when he admitted to himself that yeah he was pretending to be crazy but that Post traumatic stress disorder was real. That because of the things he'd seen and done popcorn exploding in the microwave was kind of like being snuck up on by someone blowing a round of bullets, aiming for his back. That normal people who hadn't experienced these things didn't duck for cover. It took him a while to accept that any scenario like that would result in some crazy behaviour, a method of retaliation almost. Like having to take the microwave from the kitchen in the middle of the night, acting like it was a mission he'd been assigned, stealthy and covert as if he was rescuing someone from a POW camp. Just so he could dismantle it in an effort to fit a bell in there from some bicycle he found abandoned. Trilling of a bell sounds a heck of a lot better than popcorn rattling against the door like bullets. He was kind of sad the doctor found the parts and took them from his room before he could get all the kinks figured out.

He should have just asked BA how to rig it up.

On the other hand probably best he hadn't, the other man would have dismissed it as more of his stupid jibber jabber. Might have tried to strangle him again.

He guessed it wouldn't be as bad as the invisible animals, but probably still pretty high on the Baracus' annoyance scale. Especially if he'd sang or acted goofy. No doubt he would have too, being confronted with something he didn't particularly want to relive had that effect on him.

Murdock smiled to himself, he was getting good at this psycho babble stuff, pretty soon he'd be able to conduct his own therapy sessions. That'd be cool. He could be Doctor and patient, and he had the perfect voice all figured out for his doctor. Serious, smart, mature. Seasoned.

He'd be a good doctor.

Makes a better patient though.

Made the best pilot.

He stares up at the ceiling imagining how awesome it'd be to be able to part the clouds with the blades of a chopper right now, yearning for altitude to escape in.

That's what he hates about the hospital, being boxed in, with only bricks and mortar for company in his room, preventing him from relishing in the vastness of the sky.

Of course there's always Billy.

Billy's an old friend. One he's had for a long time. Loyal, like all his oldest friends. Invisible like most of the friends he's made on the ward during the last decade.

In the back of his mind he knows Billy is merely a transferral of guilt from his subconscious. He's had enough therapy to give it a name and predict the reasoning for it and everything. He knows his brain conjured up some invisible dog to take care of because he couldn't save the soldier who shared his pet's namesake after they were shot down in 'Nam, the other man taking a bullet to the upper torso.

One minute they'd been in the air, the next hurtling to the ground, the helicopter totalled, flames streaking the sky with a distinct scent of smoke chasing its tail as the glass spider webbed ; shattered into pieces so that the jungle became some illuminated kaleidoscope, leaving him disoriented and bleeding, but a million times better than Billy who lay clutching his chest, body heaving in pain, hands stained crimson.

So began his first mission in causing distraction from the torment around him.

Murdock had made sure Billy spent hours talking about how he was going to go home, forging a link between where they were and the family they had behind. Billy had told him about how he was planning to return home and take care of the dogs on his Mama's farm. Their voices were growing hoarse as the sun set, until the only light was from the horizon burning in the distant, the guns rat-tat-tatting amongst the wails of pain swallowed by the grenades exploding. Murdock had always preferred it that way, how the impact of the war made the ground shake so he didn't have to hear the screams, especially now as he lay there trying so damn hard to keep Billy conscious, to keep him alive.

He started asking him trivial stuff about those yet to exist animals on the farm in Arizona. Asked about the dogs' names,their breed, argued over the colour, choosing where they'd sleep and what chores they'd do, elaborated the way the dogs would bounce around Billy's heels as he worked, never leaving him alone for a minute. They engineered a dream world between them, safe on American soil, away from the cold hand of death.

It just wasn't enough.

The bullets were lodged too deep, the blood pumping out at an alarming rate, even with Murdock pressing the rags he ripped from his uniform as hard as he could against the wound, desperate to stop the flow.

The dream world wasn't strong enough to fight the power of reality. It was futile. He couldn't distract them any longer. It just wouldn't work and it wasn't fair. The earth was drying against their clothes now, wet and cold, until he'd had to try drag Billy out of the twisted metal in an attempt to find him a suitable place to have his final resting place. Somewhere where those green eyes could close for the last time and wouldn't be filled with a well of misery.

He tried to drag him back from death's clammy grasp but to no avail so the least he can do is offer this solace.

He wouldn't let him die beneath some tree, swarmed by flies, in the wreckage mere feet from the Viet Cong. He was an American hero, a brother. Brothers didn't die like that.

They died beneath the blades of choppers, with a Pilot standing guard, saluting him for a service he'd never really get the chance to complete.

That's another thing Murdock hates about the hospital. If he stares at the ceiling long enough he forgets to surround himself with noise and the ceiling starts telling him stories he'd long thought buried. He wishes the walls really would melt and take those swirls of plaster above with him.

He rolls over, safe back in the VA hospital, head tilted backwards feeling the ever familiar sensation of blood rushing to the forefront of his skull, a practised art form for chasing the memories away. The room looks better upside down, like the view he'd see if he wrenched a 'copter through the sky, up is down and down is up and his logic makes sense this way.

Murdock stays that way a while, until the crick starts to work its way up his neck. He moves, the world heavy and distorted in dizziness making him sure that if he squints he can see Billy observing him in the corner, fur askew and tongue hanging out in delight.

Happy.

Like he should be with those green eyes sparkling in the darkness.

Alive and well, and no where near Vietnam.


End file.
